Ready for Long Beach!

LONG BEACH GRAND PRIX!  YES!  It is that time of year again, folks!  I am all checked in, set up and ready to rip for this one!  Last year was a blast... Ed Brown & I finished 8th, one lap down, but set the fastest lap of the Ferrari's during the race.  This year we're better-armed with our new Ferrari F458 Italia GT and we're going to keep Ed on the lead lap (because he's a PIMP and been working real hard preparing for this race) - putting me in striking distance for the finish.  I cannot wait for this!  I absolutely love this place.

I first drove at Long Beach in 2001, in my very first CART Toyota Atlantic race.  I hadn't been back (driving) until last year.  This year marks 10 YEARS since my first Long Beach experience.  I hope to make it a memorable one!

Practice starts at 7:15AM tomorrow!  First ones on track.  Keep tabs of my Twitter feed (www.Twitter.com/GuyCosmo) for updates throughout the day, and watch LIVE timing & scoring online for session results! (http://scoring.americanlemans.com/scoring.php).

Watch LIVE Online Broadcasts of qualifying & the race on www.ESPN3.com:
-Long Beach Grand Prix Qualifying - Friday, April 15th 8:00PM EDT
-Long Beach Grand Prix Race - Saturday, April 16th 7:15PM EDT

I'll update again tomorrow night!  In the mean time, get your Long Beach juices flowin' & check out the photo gallery from last year: http://www.guycosmo.com/2010-photos/grand-prix-at-long-beach/

Barber, the Recap.

Man - what a wild race! After a pretty grueling few days of lack-luster lap times and handling characteristics, we once again discovered that when it's bad for us, it's probably worse for others! Teammate Stew Tetreault qualified & started 27th, and avoided a few incidents during his 30-minute stint. I then hopped in and began the charge to the front. The track was a disaster - a slippery, greasy nightmare with absolutely no grip - and it got worse lap after lap! The car - not so happy either, but as we ALWAYS prove, in crap conditions, and when everyone else burns off their tires, we are as fast - if not faster - than anyone out there.

Joey Hand was right in front of me and I knew if I could hang with him, we'd be in great shape. Firstly, Joey is one of the best drivers out there - 'Hands' down (hehe, get it...? 'HAND'..?). But Joey's also got a BMW M3 that's GREAT in traffic - so as Joey passed cars, he opened the door for me as well and I hustled that little Porsche Cayman S right in there behind him. We advanced A LOT of positions together, and then pitted again for our last stop. Problem was, we only took fuel - not tires. Although that put me into 5th place, which was an amazing strategy call by the brain trust at BGB Motorsports, I was a sitting duck for those behind me who put tires on during their last stop.

I definitely didn't make it easy for anyone, as you'll see on the SPEED TV broadcast next week, but I did ultimately fall to 8th in the remaining few laps after a final restart & 13-minute sprint to the end. I drove my little heart out, but when you're going sideways & spinning wheels, you ain't goin' forward!

All in all it was a great race for us, and we certainly performed and finished stronger than we expected to. Again, it was some of the most hard-fought, intense, door-to-door, bumper-to-bumper, wheel-bangin' & romp-em-stomp-em racing out there. The racing in this series really is pretty insane - and that's FUN. That's three 8th place finishes in a row, and we're just collecting championship points.

Next round of Continental Tire is at Virginia Intl. Raceway, May 12-14, but next up for me is the GRAND PRIX OF LONG BEACH!!! SWEEEET!! I'm home for three days then off to California! Stay tuned, and thanks for following!

Barber Update & Qualifying Report

Well hello ~ we meet again...!  Barber, oh Barber... part race track & part circumstance, I'm just definitely not in love with this place.  Yes, it's beautiful - but... looks aren't everything.

Collectively we all at BGB Motorsports have worked real hard to get our Porsche Cayman S' a bit further up the charts, to not much avail.  It's just a very challenging weekend, and some tracks suit your car better than others, and Barber is not one for us!  Both cars qualified 26th & 27th on the grid for tomorrow's race, and it's going to be a long one.  I'll likely get in very early and drive nearly two hours, and I'll be sure to give it my all!  It's going to be HOT though!  90 degrees and humid in a car that's going to require lots of activity to keep it on track!  But this is what I do!  And I'll do it with a smile - or at least for as long as I can!  I'm known in the BGB camp to get a little aggravated during these Continental Tire races... ;)  You may (or may not) want to listen to me on the radio.  Maybe one day I'll record some of our radio conversations and upload them.  Or then again, that REALLY might not be a good idea!!

Let's see how tomorrow goes!  As always, and especially in this series, ANYTHING can happen - and I'll be ready to pounce on it when it does!  GO BGB #83!!!

Back at Barber!

Photo by Margie Hersey GerardBarber Motorsports Park.  Clearly one of the most BEAUTIFUL race tracks & facilities I've ever seen, but one thing remains... NO STINKIN' GRIP on the race track!  MAN that drives me nuts!  I've been here two days and already I can't wait to go home!!!  Ok, ok, that's a little drastic, I know.  Honestly, I don't want to go home - I just want to race!  Walking up and down the paddock you hear everyone complain of how terrible their cars are handling and how many changes they make to the cars to make them work, and no one is happy!  Are you kidding me?  We're not talking about clapped out '80's beater vehicles here... we're talking 2010 & '11 BMW M3's, Chevy Camaro's, Ford Mustangs, Porsche 911's and Cayman S' - state-of-the-art icons of the streets these days - all handling like crap???  YEP!  There's only two things other than the car in this equation... tires, and track surface.

ANYWAY, our BGB Motorsports Porsche Cayman S' are suffering a little bit from the lack of grip in the track surface and an easily & very quickly degrading tire situation.  The cars handle reasonably for a few laps at a relatively quick pace, but then the tires burn off and slowly get worse every lap, until all the drivers are whining.  We're gunna need a LOT of cheese in pit lane to go with all of the 'whine'... hehe, get it... whine? Cheese?  I'm hilarious.

Stay tuned as tomorrow we qualify and Saturday we race!  Live timing & scoring can be found on Grand-Am's website (http://www.grand-am.com/) - check it out!  Also follow my Twitter account for my updates throughout the day: http://www.twitter.com/GuyCosmo.

Ciao!